President Xi Jinping signed a presidential order on Tuesday to award four people national medals and honorary titles for their outstanding contributions     1     fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zhong Nanshan,84,     2     excellent disease expert, was awarded the Medal of the Republic, the highest national honor, for his outstanding work in fighting COVID-19 in China. Three    3    (other) were also awarded the “People’s Hero” national honorary title for helping fight against the novel coronavirus(新冠病毒).They are Zhang Boli, a    4    (tradition) Chinese medicine expert; Zhang Dingyu , head of Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital; and Chen Wei, a medical scientist     5     made major achievements in COVID-19-related basic research.

Zhong also has long been devoted to the research ,prevention and    6    (treat) of major infectious and chronic respiratory diseases(慢性呼吸病), and has a long record of achievements. He was a major figure in the fight against the severe acute respiratory syndrome(综合症状) outbreak in 2003 in China.    7    (follow) the COVID-19 outbreak , the Chinese government encouraged the country    8    (contain) the disease in Wuhan, Hubei province, after the city was locked down in late January. More than 42000 medical workers from across the country     9    (send) to Hubei to fight the disease. The pandemic has been     10    (effective) placed under control on the Chinese mainland since early March.